Infection?

How fast could/can an infection develop in cider? I started a hard apple cider 3 days ago and it smells very sour...

5 gal Tree Top juice
1.5 lb cane sugar
2 large cinnamon sticks
15/20 whole cloves
1tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp allspice
1 star anise
7 cans of apple juice concentrate.

All spices were simmered in a quart or so of apple juice for appx 45 min prior to introduction to full volume of juice.
All sugar was dissolved into simmering apple juice and simmered for 15 minutes. Bucket, lid, stopper airlock etc...... all soaked in iso solution for 45 min to sanitize. 4 gallons of juice were shaken almost into a froth to oxygenated prior to pitching yeast. (may have been unnecessary since juice wasn't boiled like wort).

All ingredients were added to bucket and allowed to cool for yeast pitch... Lid was on bucket while cooling. This didn't take long since the 4+ gallons of the juice was already at room temp.

Pitched one smack pack of Wyeast 4766 cider yeast.

Activity started within an hour and by morning was the most active fermentation I've ever seen. I could actually hear the plastic parts of the airlock hitting each other from the other room. This has slowed to a burp about every 1/2 second now. The temp is probably 80 (room temp). I came home this afternoon and it smells like sour rotten apples in the room... not a pleasant smell at all.

Thoughts/comments

Cider ferments just smell aweful. It's normal.

Great I started my first batch last night. My apartment should smell wonderful when I get home.

Just wait- it'll start to stink up pretty soon! I think ciders give off more sulfur smells than wine or beer.

I hope you're all right. I made a starter out of just plain apple juice and a teaspoon of the same yeast and it smells wonderful.. I think I'm going to do another 5 gal batch just in case. I'll use this started and see what happens.

Rdracera1 said:

5 gal Tree Top juice
1.5 lb cane sugar
2 large cinnamon sticks
15/20 whole cloves
1tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp allspice
1 star anise
7 cans of apple juice concentrate.

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Where did you get this recipe, and what was your specific gravity from the get go? It sounds like it might have way too much sugar in it.

It's a mix of two different recipes I found online.
As for the OG, I put aside a sample for testing and before I had a chance to take a reading my "helper" dumped it and washed the cup. I couldn't really complain, she was helping to clean-up my mess.

I started another batch this afternoon just to be safe. It smells great so far and is almost as active as the other batch. One major difference is the 2nd batch was dumped on a ale yeast cake. Now it's all about father time.

Rdracera1 said:

It's a mix of two different recipes I found online.
As for the OG, I put aside a sample for testing and before I had a chance to take a reading my "helper" dumped it and washed the cup. I couldn't really complain, she was helping to clean-up my mess....

Click to expand...

If you have a Vinometer you can find out what the OG was. The 5 gal of juice + 7 cans of concentrate sounds overboard for a 5 or 6.5 gallon batch.

gyrfalcon said:

If you have a Vinometer you can find out what the OG was. The 5 gal of juice + 7 cans of concentrate sounds overboard for a 5 or 6.5 gallon batch.

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Perhaps.
My thought was that there would be more sugar than the yeast could eat before the alcohol killed them off. Thus leaving me with some degree of sweetness. Plus last year when I made cider using tree top the apple flavor was very faint. The concentrate should help with that also.....

time will tell.